Motivation and Instructional Design

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Understanding Motivational Design: Six Questions

(Reiser, 2002)

1. What do I need to know about motivation? Why should I have to know anything about it if my focus is on instructional design and technology?

• "To produce high-quality products, instructional designers must be thoroughly grounded in the processes of both motivational and instructional design" (Reiser, 2002)
• Keep up with the movement toward a broad perspective known as human performance technology - understanding that many factors influence human performance (social climate, incentives, leadership methods, etc.)
• Motivation on three levels:
  • Motivation to learn - internal characteristics, external and environmental factors that stimulate and sustain motivation in learners.
  • Motivation to work - designing work environments that have the same environmental and external factors to stimulate employee motivation.
  • Self-motivation - employees/students expected to contribute to larger knowledge base and must be able to motivate themselves.

2. What is motivation (and what isn't it -- what is it different from?)

• 3 major categories of influence on performance which need to be integrated into instructional design:
  • Capability - person's knowledge, skills and aptitude - what a person is able to do
  • Opportunity - resources and information necessary to perform a task
  • Motivation - person's desire to pursue a goal or perform a task (consider choice of goals and effort in pursuing those goals)

3. What are the assumptions and issues in learning and applying motivational design principles and processes?

Assumptions

• People's motivation can be influenced by external factors/events - even motivated students can become unmotivated and disinterested in boring or un-engaging material/teachers.
• Motivation is a means, not an end, in relation to learning and performance improvement - motivation does not always equate entertainment (although that is good); the goal of motivation is to have learners engaged and active.
• Systematic design can be used to predictably and measurably influence motivation.
• While ultimately people are responsible for their own motivation, the design of training and performance environment can have positive, or negative, influences on motivation of learners.

Issues

• Intrincsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation - generally there is a mixture of the two elements
  • instrinsic motivation occurs when there is no apparent reward except the pleasure of engaging in the activity (Deci, 1975)
  • extrinsic motivation occurs when individuals engage in tasks for rewards associated with successful accomplishments
• Trait vs. State - motivational design models must accommodate both the stable strait and the changeable state aspects of motivation and incorporate means for identifying them during audience motivation analysis to be able to respond to both.
  • state - a condition brought on by a situational stimulus or process
  • trait - a stable psychological need or drive
• Affective vs. Cognitive Domain
  • cognitive domain - focuses on people's interpretations of the causes of outcomes, combined with the value they attach to the outcomes, as a major influence on whether people will pursue given goals (Rotter, 1966)
  • affective domain - emotions must also be considered because of their influence on motivation and behaviors (Astleitner, 2000)

4. What are the major characteristics of motivation in particular the characteristics that will be useful for me to know?

• Value-Related Concepts - addresses some aspect of the question what important goals, needs, or values are that motivate a person.
  • Self-actualization (Maslow, 1954) - hierarchy of needs explain basis of human motivation.
  • Need for achievement (McClelland, 1976) -
  • Sensations seeking (Zukerman, 1978)
  • 

    Competence.pdf
    

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    (White, 1959)
  • Reinforcement value (Rotter, 1972)
  • Curiousity (Berlyne, 1965)
• Expectancy-Related Concepts
  • Attribution (Weiner, 1985)
  • Personal causation (deCharms, 1976)
  • Locus of control (Rotter, 1966)
  • Learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975)
  • Self - efficacy (Bandura, 1977)
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    Expectancy for Success.pdf
    

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    (Fibel & Hale, 1978)

5. How can I apply this knowledge of motivation in the context of instructional design and human performance?

Instructors need to be concerned with establishing learning environments that motivate learning. To do this, one has to estimate the learners' motivational characteristics and then design the learning environment to match their motivational requirements. Motivational approaches must therefore take a holistic approach and not be limited just a few motivational characteristics. Such holistic models of motivational design are:

Wlodkowski's Time-Continuum Model (1999) - contains categories of motivational tactics and prescrives when to use them during an episode of instruction

Keller's ARCS model (1984)

6. What are the trends or future directions in motivational research and application to learning environment design?

• Within the domain of training and human resource development, there has been increasing interest in human performance technology --> motivation in the workplace and self-motivation
• Role of motivation in the constructivist approach to learning environment design --> authenticity - learning activities in real world context
• Role of motivation in web-based instruction, computer-based instruction and online learning
• Understanding the affective components of motivation in regards to emotions
• Research on how to make the design process quick and effective (reduce time in project initiation to completion)